In this interview, Caroline Abu Sa’Da, General Director of SOS MEDITERRANEE Suisse,
discusses search-and-rescue operations in the Mediterranean Sea, in particular those conducted
by her organisation. She explains that as a European citizen movement, SOS MEDITERRANEE has
adopted a hybrid and politicised approach, which represents a new kind of humanitarian
engagement. And she reflects on the challenges of protecting and supporting those crossing the
Mediterranean.

Abstract

In this interview, Caroline Abu Sa’Da, General Director of SOS MEDITERRANEE Suisse,
discusses search-and-rescue operations in the Mediterranean Sea, in particular those conducted
by her organisation. She explains that as a European citizen movement, SOS MEDITERRANEE has
adopted a hybrid and politicised approach, which represents a new kind of humanitarian
engagement. And she reflects on the challenges of protecting and supporting those crossing the
Mediterranean.

Introduction

London, 10 September 2018

Since 2015, more than one and a half million people have traversed the Mediterranean, seeking
asylum in Europe. The EU has been negotiating their screening and resettlement outside of Europe.
European governments have closed some ports and borders to them. And neofascist groups from
across Europe have rallied on the ground and online to prevent their entry. Thousands have died
at sea.

Multinational NGOs like Médecins Sans Frontières and Save the Children have
carried out search-and-rescue missions. But it is citizen movements that have been at the
forefront of the emergency response. Similarly inspired by cosmopolitan ideals, these groups tend
to use more political language than conventional NGOs, presenting their relief activities as a
form of direct resistance to nationalist politics and xenophobia. As liberal humanitarianism is
challenged in its European heartland, they are developing – through practice – a
new model of humanitarian engagement.

SOS MEDITERRANEE is an ad hoc citizen initiative founded in 2015 to prevent the death of people
crossing the Med. Caroline Abu Sa’Da is General Director of its Swiss branch.

Juliano Fiori: SOS is very much a product of contemporary Europe. It’s a
civic response to refugees and migrants in the Med but also to nationalistic politics, or to the
return of nationalist movements to the forefront of European politics. How, then, does SOS differ
from European humanitarian NGOs founded in past decades?

Caroline Abu Sa’Da: SOS is a European citizen movement. Besides our
search-and-rescue activities, we aim to give to the greatest number of people access to
information – facts – on the situation in the Mediterranean, so that they at least
are able to form their own judgement on it. They can then decide whether they have a
responsibility. Definitely the need is there.

After eleven years with MSF, it was really this kind of political and social engagement that
interested me. SOS is a ‘hydroponic NGO’, if I may put it like that –
nourished from below. Working with the organisation in Switzerland is particularly interesting,
given that the country is not very open-minded on migration. It has really been a challenge to
see how exactly we can engage with and mobilise people.

SOS was not conceived as something to exist forever. It is an ad hoc initiative, which will
stop as soon as there is an institutionalised, legal way for people to cross the Mediterranean to
seek asylum without drowning. So it’s really not built as an NGO. It’s a gathering
of people from different backgrounds who are willing to work together for a very specific reason,
and it will be dismantled as soon as the political answer is considered satisfactory, even if
that takes a while.

JF: SOS might, then, be considered part of a new movement in emergency response,
which includes Alarm Phone, Sea Watch and Open Arms. But its operational approach bears some
similarity to that of older humanitarian NGOs. Indeed, it works closely with Médecins Sans
Frontières…

CAS: Yes, we are in touch with Open Arms, Sea Watch and so on, but SOS sits
somewhere between citizen activism and humanitarian work. Other search-and-rescue groups,
particularly those in Germany, are much more involved in discussing asylum systems in Europe,
while our focus is rescue and testimony.

Most of the time, we are in reactive mode; it is an emergency mission but of a different kind.
Right before leaving MSF for SOS, I was Head of Mission for Syria and Iraq, overseeing operations
in Mosul. The level of intensity since I started with SOS is the same. But SOS is smaller. The
team on board the Aquarius [the rescue ship operated by SOS and MSF] never includes more than
fifteen people and our budget is only 4 million euros. It is mobilisation on land, rather than
operational issues at sea, that take most time.

JF: How has SOS positioned itself politically in relation to European governments
and institutions that have sought to prevent people crossing the Mediterranean to Europe?

CAS: What I thought was interesting about SOS when I joined was how it provided an
opportunity for people, particularly young people, to engage politically on issues of migration
but outside of political parties. We have had a lot of people aged 20–35, who have been
willing to get involved because they don’t identify with political parties on this topic,
they want to do something about it and they can’t necessarily join NGOs like MSF because
they don’t have professional experience in humanitarian work. They specifically want to do
something in Europe rather than going to Bangladesh or Syria or Iraq. It is really this idea of
dealing with a European issue, in Europe, in a way that might bring about political change,
without being embedded in a political party.

This is a new type of political engagement and politics – different to that which
inspired previous generations of humanitarian workers. SOS acknowledges the fact that dealing
with migration today in Europe is extremely political. It points to existing maritime law and
international humanitarian law to remind states of their obligations. And what’s really
interesting since the end of June is that we have ended up in a situation in which rogue European
states are deliberately throwing the law to the dogs. Now we know exactly what’s going on
in Libya. We know that European states are responsible for refoulement, sending
people back to torture, rape and detention in Libya. This is completely unlawful but European
institutions are endorsing it. So SOS says: ‘No! Actually, according to international law,
these are the obligations of states.’ It’s kind of a vigilante of the
Mediterranean.

Right now, my problem with NGOs like MSF and Save the Children and Oxfam is not what they do
out in the field. It is that their staff generally don’t act as citizens. They go out to
Uganda or DRC or whatever but they don’t engage with politics in their own home countries.
Perhaps this is a result of the way NGO workers see themselves. My PhD research was on
‘NGO-isation’ in Palestine, which has had a depoliticising effect. SOS is an
emergency initiative that nonetheless provides opportunity for people who seek to engage
politically.

JF: The arrival of more than one and a half million refugees and migrants on the
shores of Europe since 2015 has tested the idea of a ‘humanitarian Europe’. It has
tested the self-identity of many Europeans. To what extent do these younger activists see their
political engagement as part of a struggle against ethno-nationalisms to define European
identity?

CAS: Switzerland is interesting in this regard. During the Yugoslav War, a lot of
people – hundreds of thousands – came to Switzerland seeking asylum. Many of them
were later granted Swiss nationality. They were well integrated. Nothing like that has happened
since in Switzerland. Those born after the mid 1990s – about half of the people working
for SOS in Switzerland today – have never seen these supposedly ‘European
principles’ in action. So for them, it’s more about defining the kind of society in
which they actually want to live.

Although Switzerland has always had an ambiguous and difficult relationship with the EU, the
Swiss see themselves as defending European values and, particularly, humanitarian law. But Swiss
neutrality has a mixed legacy. Swiss youths today question whether their country’s
supposed neutrality is a denial of responsibility. Where does neutrality end and cowardice start?
So now they say: ‘No, we’re not going to stand by and watch people suffering
without getting involved. We’re not going to allow our identity to be defined by others
who would deny these people’s rights.’

JF: To what extent do these ‘others’ – presumably opponents
of search-and-rescue missions in the Med – pose direct challenges to the work SOS is
doing?

CAS: The Defend Europe people actually aren’t much of a burden. They
organise a demonstration every time we arrive somewhere, and they are extremely active on social
networks – much more so than we are, that’s for sure. When we publish something on
Facebook or Twitter, we end up with thousands of comments from them. I’ve gone from
working with MSF in highly insecure environments, where there are IEDs and shootouts, to
receiving death threats on social media. It’s not that easy to handle and it can take a
toll on morale. But these people aren’t really an operational impediment.

The much bigger problem is that states and the EU are ignoring conventions and laws. The Dublin
Regulation – for what it’s worth – is being undermined. It is now, in
Europe, that the refugee protection regime is being buried. In June [2018], the Aquarius,
carrying 630 people to Europe, was refused entry to Italian ports. France has also prevented
people from disembarking from ships docked at its ports. The deals that were made with Libya and
Turkey [for the return of migrants and refugees] have caused a domino effect. Other countries are
increasingly turning refugees away. And UNHCR doesn’t seem prepared to stand against this.
There’s no solidarity. Solidarity and burden-sharing and protection are dead.

JF: If this is the case, if we are witnessing the death of the international
protection regime that sets the terms for responses to forced displacement, what should be the
response of those who support liberal humanitarian institutions?

CAS: Probably the only response currently possible is to fight back, to try to
maintain the international protection regime – to campaign for humane and dignified
responses to forced displacement in a broad citizen movement that might force states, including
via elections, to stick to their responsibilities.

Staff Security and Civilian Protection in the Humanitarian Sector

Journal Article

Publication History:

Abstract

In 2015, Action Contre la Faim launched a campaign calling on the UN to create a new post, that of a Special Rapporteur for the protection of humanitarian aid workers. Critics of the proposal claimed, inter alia, that creating such a post would imply that aid workers were a special category of civilians, worthy of protection over and above that accorded the wider population in the contexts in which they work.1 This raises an important issue which runs deeper than the campaign for a Special Rapporteur. The present article argues that, with or without such a post, the current situation is one in which humanitarian agencies treat aid workers as distinct and separate from the wider civilian population, and take significantly different measures for the safety of their staff from those they take for other civilians. For the most part, the distinction and associated differences are uncritically accepted, and this article sets out to challenge such acceptance by highlighting the nature of the differences, assessing possible explanations for the underlying distinction and considering its implications. Through this analysis, the article argues that this distinction not only reflects but also reinforces an unequal valuing of lives internationally.

Interpreting Violence on Healthcare in the Early Stage of the South Sudanese Civil War

Journal Article

Publication History:

Abstract

This article seeks to document and analyse violence affecting the provision of healthcare by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and its intended beneficiaries in the early stage of the current civil war in South Sudan. Most NGO accounts and quantitative studies of violent attacks on healthcare tend to limit interpretation of their prime motives to the violation of international norms and deprivation of access to health services. Instead, we provide a detailed narrative, which contextualises violent incidents affecting healthcare, with regard for the dynamics of conflict in South Sudan as well as MSF’s operational decisions, and which combines and contrasts institutional and academic sources with direct testimonies from local MSF personnel and other residents. This approach offers greater insight not only into the circumstances and logics of violence but also into the concrete ways in which healthcare practices adapt in the face of attacks and how these may reveal and put to the test the reciprocal expectations binding international and local health practitioners in crisis situations.

A Model for Historical Reflection in the Humanitarian Sector

Journal Article

Publication History:

Abstract

This article describes the results of a pilot project on using historical reflection as a tool for policy-making in the humanitarian sector. It begins by establishing the rationale for integrating reflection into humanitarian practice. It then looks at the growing interest in humanitarian history among practitioners and academics over the past decade and sets out the arguments for why a more formalised discussion about humanitarianism’s past could result in a better understanding of the contemporary aid environment. The main body of the article focuses on our efforts to translate that potential into practice, through a reflective workshop on Somalia since the 1990s, held at National University of Ireland, Galway, in June 2017. Drawing on our experience of that event, the article puts forward four principles on which a workable model of reflective practice might be developed: the importance of the workshop setting, how to organise the reflective process, the value of pursuing a single case study and the careful management of expectations and outcomes. This article is not intended to be prescriptive, however. Rather, our aim is to put forward some practical suggestions and to open a conversation about how a model of historical reflection for aid practitioners might be developed.

Journal Article

Publication History:

Abstract

Community engagement is commonly regarded as a crucial entry point for gaining access and securing trust during humanitarian emergencies. In this article, we present three case studies of community engagement encounters during the West African Ebola outbreak. They represent strategies commonly implemented by the humanitarian response to the epidemic: communication through comités de veille villageois in Guinea, engagement with NGO-affiliated community leadership structures in Liberia and indirect mediation to chiefs in Sierra Leone. These case studies are based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out before, during and after the outbreak by five anthropologists involved in the response to Ebola in diverse capacities. Our goal is to represent and conceptualise the Ebola response as a dynamic interaction between a response apparatus, local populations and intermediaries, with uncertain outcomes that were negotiated over time and in response to changing conditions. Our findings show that community engagement tactics that are based on fixed notions of legitimacy are unable to respond to the fluidity of community response environments during emergencies.